Ah, April. Almost time to begin visiting other gardeners’ dreams come to life. Minding your manners when visiting another’s garden should come naturally to gardeners. After all, garden etiquette is mostly common sense and since we are gardeners, we understand our host and their unstated considerations. But, just in case one or two (four or five?) behaviors need reminders or updating.
Yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum), Virginia blue bells and the foliage of Trillium recurvatum
Allow me to rant
Remember when you were young, all excited, and headed out the door for a social event such as a birthday party, or dinner at a friend’s house? As you went out the door Mom had a few last-minute words for your such as” Remember to mind your manners, Young Lady (or Young Man). Perhaps it was something like “Be on your best behavior” or something close to those words. If no one ever said anything similar to you that is another story for another time and far too late in life to read any further here.
Be where you are. If you must, ask permission before taking photos of the plants or garden, or other gardeners. Perhaps not everyone wants to be on your social media sites.
Bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata), Paeonia obovata and Phlox divaricata
Dress appropriately
The last lady wearing high heels while touring my garden found herself becoming a groundcover on and around my Arisaema. She was quite graceful in her movement from a sudden 60s dance of the Twist to a flying leap from the path to a garden bed. She managed to crush a colony of plants appropriately named Whiplash Lilies while covering the surrounding area. However, the green stains on her white blouse did not go well with her red face.
Arisaema urishima
No, I do not close my garden and ‘cottage’ to spend the winter in Florida or Arizona. This is my home. Speaking of, no, only one bathroom is available in the greenhouse. Use the one on the bus that brought you or hold it until your turn. Again, this is a home and garden, not a park system.
Stay on the garden path
An easy one, but it can be oh-so-tempting to wander from the obvious route. Just one foot placed into a garden bed to take a closer look. If your host worked for days to till and amend the soil, and weeks constructing a path, odds are he does not want another gardener walking and compacting on the soil. Even I do not walk on beds I have prepared. To see a visiting gardener leave a path to walk on a garden bed causes me to bite my pencil.
Do not point out weeds
Your host is more than likely very aware of every weed in their garden. My favorite weed has become Garlic mustard because of native plant nuts leaving a path and running through a bed to pull a plant. Very proudly they will walk back through the beds holding the offending weed out like a smiling child with a dandelion. They may have walked on several plants not up yet, but they got that weed for you. Unless invited to a weed-pulling party resist please and stay on the path. (Also see above.)
No snitching the garden goodies
Taking something from the garden without asking permission beforehand has a one-word definition. NO! Just a pinch, perhaps a small start, only a few seeds, could not possibly be missed. After all the host has so many. But, yes they probably will be missed. You may think a pinch or two from your garden is ok in another’s but perhaps your host propagates his own plants. After a tour was over and the bus left, I walked my garden to relax. A small perfectly square hole now existed where once a double-flowering Anemonella once resided. I hope that the little beauty performs well for them so they will be able to remember the flower as they burn in hell.
Arisaema candidissimum
One final word of advice
A little thank you is always appreciated. A note card, an email, or a word at the end of the garden visit saying thank you can be quite special. The garden you visited could have taken much of a lifetime to create, entertaining you for a couple of hours. Gardeners love to share, but they also appreciate being told they “Did a good thing”.
The world I have created over the past 30-plus years is dissolving. The illusion of control called my garden is no more. The stamina, strength, and resolve are no longer so my garden cannot continue. After wandering about grieving over the past 4 or 5 years, I have finally arrived. All that remains is the spirit, the soul, and that is in a cocoon waiting to complete its metamorphosis.
Yew Dell Botanical Gardens will make another trip or two to complete harvesting the plants they desire from the garden. My dream children will find a good home where they can be cared for by plant lovers, admired by more gardeners than could ever see them here in another lifetime.
Always wrap up life with a gift of thank you.
Gene
I haven’t laughed so hard in quite awhile. Wonderful rant.
Laughter is a “goodthing” s Martha would say. Enjoy.
Some things never change! Back in the eighties,I worked at a well known garden and nursery. The worst were coachloads of WI members who would ‘ pinch a cutting or seed head ‘ usually just at the wrong time for it to succeed. One day,a lady,armed with a tiny trowel asked the garden owner,who was quietly weeding,to keep an eye out for the owner – when she was challenged she said ” it’s fine,I belong to the RHS,you know! “
Really good rant. I find it’s very difficult to say many things to people about being rude. They tend to act like I shouldn’t care about my plants so much. Eyeroll.
Hesitate to go there. Vulgarity is not allowed.
Good (garden) manners are everything. Perhaps you’ve heard of or visited the garden mecca that is Buffalo and Western New York? For the entire month of July there are community garden walks galore, and open gardens on Thursday and Fridays during specified hours. With the designers/creators/gardeners onsite, kind words of appreciation go a very long way toward good will.
Your words of advice regarding donating to local plant lovers come at the perfect time in my gardening life, Gene. All the years of creating my beloved gardens have been in the here and now. At the moment, I am wondering if the next homeowner will cherish them as much as I do. The grieving (and aging) process is at hand, and I must seek homes for my dear plant friends. Thank you for your reminders and gentle guidance.
I am trying to wrap my head around a visitor stealing a plant from someone’s garden. This rant has left me feeling so sad at the thought of you losing your lovely garden. I myself stay in an unhappy marriage simply because my garden is here, and if I left, the vultures (older daughter and son-in-law, who live here) would swoop in and claim it as their own. Over my dead body. Literally.
Oh Susan my story except I had to leave…my heart will always be with my lost 11 flower beds and 2 greenhouses I had to sell!
I suggest rather than biting your pencil you bite the offender. Much more effective. A well placed sign reading “Do not approach the wildlife” should give you legal cover.
Great commentary on the state of garden visitors. The sad thing is that if these sad souls would just ask, you’d probably send them home with far more starts and in better condition than the one they filched!
Well, thank the minor gods and dieties not all gardeners are sad souls.There is you and I.
Much of my large garden is visible from the road so ‘visitors’ are welcome to stay in their vehicles and do a slow drive-by. The only invited guests to date have been:
– a fellow gardener who arrived with plant gifts and many compliments for me, stayed a short while (had to get back to weeding) and was sent home with a bounty of dahlia tubers
– my friend with fiancée, toddler and elementary school age child in tow. They came to “help” me pick hundreds of tulips and daffodils blown open by the sudden heat. I initially attempted supervision and handed my friend a pair of scissors, then things devolved to free range wandering and tiny hands yanking and snapping blooms from the many beds. Oh well, it’s good for me to be less precious about things. Two years later the kids are still talking about it and excitedly asking their parents when they can visit. The older one wants to be a farmer and helped me weed a raised bed. The toddler mostly ran around handing flowers to his parents.
Anna, what a sweet story! Good for you for just letting it happen.
It is amazing what one experience can mean for a child, picking flowers, or being given a plant. One such child in my garden went on to own her own landscaping company. It is good for us to be less precious (when it comes to children) and encourage such healthy interests. Good for you.
Enjoyed the rant, but even more the poignancy of the long farewell to a beloved garden. I once read something about likening the creation of a garden to the weaving of an stunningly elaborate,colorful carpet..open to the gardener and the world for an allotted number of years. Inevitably, the carpet begins to fray, and eventually, must be rolled up, so that another can take its place. I’m trying to approach the losses in my garden (and of my abilities )with grace and as much humor as possible. (And sharing plants with all who are interested, so my dad’s truly perennial black-eyed susans, my grandmother’s dahlias, etc.can go on to become part of another tapestry).
I was reminded of a woman who wandered off in my gardens about 10 years ago when I first began to keep bees. I had only only hive which was located on a pathway which was to be avoided for obvious reasons. She followed that path which meant that she walked in front of the hive. It was a lovely day …the bees ignored her. She came up to me breathless and said “Holy shit! I can’t believe I walked in front of a beehive! “ I gave her a jar of honey….
That was Carol Ann Harlos above.